Colored in Shades of Red
by ncfan
Summary: Sometimes, in battle, we do things that horrify even ourselves.


Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

Choza blinks, getting his bearings, looking around. The sand swirls at his feet, and blood rushes in his ears. Sand nin and Leaf nin shriek and scream all around, fighting and dying. Kunai hum through the air, and Choza's just looking for his teammates.

He and Inoichi and Shikaku were not on a genin cell together, though their clans had always had a history of working together. They didn't know each other until they were fourteen years old, meeting a few months after they were made chunin. On that battlefield, they still don't know each other very well. They don't know each other's habits, and thus tend to do things that shock each other.

Choza recovers from his momentary disorientation, and runs back up the dune, looking for his comrade, swinging his elongated arm left and right as he does so.

Blood soaks the sand, and Choza stumbles as he runs. It's Sand nin left and right, all around him, but thanks be to God they don't seem to notice him. Choza isn't at the point that he thinks he can tangle with a Sand nin and live.

He gets to the summit of a dune, and sees Inoichi and Shikaku at the base. Inoichi seems to have run out of energy for his jutsu, because he's drawn a tanto and is hacking through the lines as best he can, cutting flesh and severing bone.

Shikaku is doing something a bit…different.

He is staring down no less than half a dozen Sand nin with cold, unforgiving eyes as his shadow extends with long, searching fingers.

The fingers of Shikaku's shadow wrap around six pairs of ankles, crushing the flute-like bones there. They extend up six Sand nin bodies, crushing strategic bones as they go. Sharp, almost inhuman howls of pain follow the shadow's progress. Finally, the fingers reach the throats.

Choza knows that it takes up to two minutes to strangle someone. As six pairs of eyes roll back in six heads and the Sand nin trapped by Shikaku's Kage Kubi Shibari no Jutsu suffocate under Shikaku's influence, Choza wonders what must be going through Shikaku's mind.

.x.X.x.

Inoichi's heart pounds as blood splatters across the blade of his tanto; breath comes from his mouth in heavy, ragged gasps. The green eyes of the kunoichi he's fighting blaze with battle rage; she clearly has absolutely no intention of backing down.

Inoichi isn't sure if he has the chakra necessary to perform Shintensin no Jutsu on her, not even for a moment. Considering how much concentration is needed to perform his clan's jutsu, God knows that if Inoichi even tries there's a good chance it'll blow up in his face and leave him so energy deprived that he may be rendered incapable of fighting at all.

A sharp knife of wind slashes across Inoichi's arm and face, cutting open the skin; the Sand kunoichi isn't giving him much of a choice. She smiles coolly as she steps forward, preparing to deal a killing blow.

The Yamanaka smirks, and supposes that it's a good thing that he's always been a bit of a gambler.

"Shintensin no Jutsu!"

The woman's mind is tightly buttoned up, but Inoichi knows the way past mental defenses, no matter how formidable.

Inoichi has a plan to deal with the offending Sand kunoichi. Normal possession won't work; he has to do something a bit more…permanent to her.

Like a nerve impulse Inoichi speeds through her mind, sifting through memories, fears and phobias, searching out weaknesses and cracks in the armor to widen and use to shatter her completely.

Sanity, any good Yamanaka knows, is such a fragile thing, and one who knows where and how to strike can sever the strings as one pulls a hair out of the scalp. It is not an action to be taken lightly, but sometimes, it's necessary, and in battle, anything goes.

Playing on emotions and sensations, Inoichi twists memories and thought, ripping apart centers of thought and cognition, shattering rationality and will and sense of self. The woman's psychic scream is the last thing Inoichi hears before he pulls back into his own body.

"You alright?" A voice is calling to him. Inoichi's head lolls a little bit as he tries to remember where he is. At first, all he can see is bright, hot, blinding white, before colors begin to return and shapes can be made out again.

The smells of sweat and blood hitting his nostrils reminds Inoichi that he is on the battlefield. His body is leaning heavily against another's, hands resting on his shoulders. He looks up in to Shikaku's canny brown eyes.

Inoichi nods, putting a hand to his screaming forehead. "Yeah…I'm fine, Shikaku."

"Will she be a problem later?"

Blinking, Inoichi shudders to his feet and looks at the kunoichi. She lies on the ground, eyes open. The pupils are dilated to the point of becoming invisible, and her green eyes are all too wide. Her mouth hangs open, slack-jawed and drooling.

Inoichi shakes his head. "No, she isn't a threat anymore." The kunoichi isn't a threat to _anyone_ anymore, as it stands.

.x.X.x.

Shikaku knows when to be a snarker and when to be sympathetic. In war, he can hardly afford to be either. It is instead better to be a machine, decisive and unwavering, regretting nothing that he does to the enemy, for they will kill him without a second thought. The ridging scars on his face attest to the folly of hesitation.

But Choza, it seems, hasn't quite learned that lesson yet.

Shikaku can't help but smile at the economy with which Choza eliminates the enemy. The man is a human tank, plowing down Sand nin the way a ball would roll over grass. He seems to have no more compunction in what he does than Shikaku himself.

Then again, Shikaku has been wrong before.

Choza returns to normal size, grinning with the exuberance of a man who has come through a deadlock battle without taking so much as a scratch. "I think we're gonna win!"

Footsteps come up behind the Akimichi, and Choza expands the length and thickness of his arm to swing and kill in one shot.

And his mouth falls open as the child he has just killed falls to the ground.

It seems to take an eternity for the small body to hit the ground, an eternity in which Choza's face contorts in pain with each passing second.

"Oh my God," he whimpers, eyes shadowing with horror. "Did I…"

For a moment, Shikaku feels scorn. But then sympathy takes over. Choza doesn't seem entirely sure of how to depart from his humanity. "Sometimes…" Shikaku whispers, staring into the girl's glazed brown eyes "…these things can't be helped."


End file.
